Stocks And Mother Sauces: The Five Building Blocks

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As any chef learns the trade, he or she must build from the basics and follow technique before the real art can begin. After you have mastered the basic techniques, building blocks and concepts, you can move on to creating dishes, blending flavors and bringing ideas into reality. One basic that every cook can work with in their online short courses are the five mother sauces. The mother sauces are the building blocks of all those amazing gravies and decadent sauces that adorn your plate at that white table cloth restaurant. With the base sauces, you can add flavors, textures and pair with delicious dishes to create an unforgettable dining experience.

The five mother sauces are:

  • Béchamel sauce
  • Espagnole or brown sauce
  • Hollandaise sauce
  • Tomato sauce
  • Veloute sauce

After you have mastered these cornerstones of cooking, you will be able to grow your cooking repertoire. From these five sauces, there are many secondary sauces that can be created. From Espagnole sauce, you can make a demi-glace or bordelaise and from béchamel you can make a creamy cheddar cheese sauce. All five of these flavor-packed sauces are wonderful on their own, but they can also give life to more complex sauces. Any dish will look far more put together and professional with a nice sauce to marry the flavors and add a component to a dish that you don’t see every day.

Wherever you are on your adventure of learning to cook, you should always make time to learn the classics and the basics. Every great chef had to learn the basics at some point and, although they have moved far past the point of being a student, they most likely still use the basics every time they step into the kitchen.


If you like this post, please be sure to check out the following!

How To Make Brown Sauce
The Five French Mother Sauces
Free Cooking Course – World Flavors: Salt, Spices, & Herbs